Okay, it seems that everyone else who got one of these hates it, but I actually like it.

HERE IS THE SECRET TO OPERATING THIS PHONE WITH ONLY ONE BUTTON LIKE AN IPHONE: I can operate all the functions of the phone with either a single-press of the “one button” for back, a quick double-press of the “one button” for home, or a long-press of the “one button” for menu. It’s that easy. I’m dumfounded that other purchasers couldn’t figure this out too.

I have an absurd number of unlocked smartphones and dumbphones that I carry from time to time, including this one (which identifies itself as an e1809c), an iPhone 3, an iPhone 4, an iPhone 4s, a Samsung Galaxy Y Duos S6102, a Motorola Backflip MB300, an LG GD-570, a Pantech P7040, a Sony W580i, a Motorola C330, a MiFi 2372 and some others. I have three different Android tablets.

This one and the iPhone 4s are my everyday carry phones. I do a lot of international travel, and I load this one up with local prepaid sim cards for the country I’m in and the one I’m headed to next, and keep my “home” sim in the iPhone. When I’m at home, I load this one up with a prepaid sim from H20 or Simple and use it as a wifi hotspot as needed. I’ll usually leave in one of the international prepaid sims if I expect inbound calls from clients – gives them a local number to call. Dual SIM capability is a must-have for some of us, and this phone makes it easy to manage both sims.

It’s true that most “normal” Android phones have several “extra” buttons along the bottom of the screen for menu, home, back and so forth. This one has only the one-true-button on the front, an on-button on top, the two volume buttons, and the silence switch – exactly the same buttons an iPhone does. Other reviewers were unable to operate the phone at all – saying that it was broken because there were not enough buttons, but that’s just whining. As I noted at the top of the review, I can operate it just fine.

The battery life on this is no worse than my iPhone 4s, but not as good as the Samsung GT-S6102. If you do something stupid like load up an animated aquarium or flickr downloader as your live wallpaper, your battery dies right away. Don’t do that. Load up something useful like wpclock as your live wallpaper, and you can last all day on a charge.

It’s convenient (if peculiar) that this phone charges from and uses the same dock connector as an iPhone. Yet another non-standard connector for the phone would be a big negative (and plenty of new phones still have nonstandard connectors). My friends call it the i-faux-ne (ha ha, get it?).

Using gps4cam (an app that keeps a waypoint list of your location) the location on this phone is far less accurate than either the Samsung GT-S6102 or an iPhone 4s. Using GoogleMaps or some other mapping application is an iffy proposition with this phone, so if navigation is important to you, this is not the right phone.

The camera is pretty bad, and the sensor has a lot of noise, so this is not the camera phone to use for documenting the revolution.

It’s unlikely that there will ever be a firmware update to 4.1, and there doesn’t seem to be a CyanogenMod build for it, so it’s stuck at Android 4.0 forever. Even Samsung or Motorola usually doesn’t do more than one or two firmware updates on old phones, so no updates at all for a generic chinese phone is expected.

The build quality, fit and finish isn’t as good as any Apple or Samsung phone, and no smartphone is as rugged as a dumbphone (my Pantech P7040 has taken a three-story ground fall onto concrete and survived, and the C330 fell out of a moving trolley car and survived). But this one has taken it’s share of groundfalls onto a hotel-room carpet, and if you leave the “case” on it that comes as part of the packaging, it’s no less sturdy than an iPhone in a similar plastic case. Some of the other reviewers thought the buttons in their sample were cheesy or defective, but all the buttons on mine are still attached and functional after a year of hard daily use. By comparison, my Sony W580i had to be replaced twice because buttons fell off back when it was an everyday carry phone.

From my perspective, this is a great little unlocked phone that does what it should at a fair price. At a a quarter of the price of an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III you get most of the flexibility and functionality.

For those thinking this phone is just an iPhone knockoff that’s not exactly correct. While it looks and feels almost exactly like the iPhone 4 (in a case you can’t tell it’s not), it’s really it’s own phone. The best way I can describe it is if an iPhone and an Androidgot together and had a baby this would be the result, an iDroid I guess you could say.

I initially got this phone just because I needed a cheap sim compatible smartphone, not really expecting much out of it. In the week I’ve had it it has far exceeded my expectations. While it’s nowhere near the iPhone 5 or the Galaxy 3, it’s still a very good phone in it’s own right, especially for the price. So far I haven’t had any problems with it except for not being able to receive MMS. I’ve tried several variations with my APN settings but to no avail.. I think this may be an error with the custom rom that comes installed on it and not necessarily the phone itself.

For everyone that hasn’t figured it out already this phone DOES have all the button functions of a Droid phone, just in iOS format. CLick the face button once to go back, twice to return to the home screen, long press to bring up the menu, hold down the power button and the volume – together to take a screenshot. While the phone is off hold down the power button and the volume – together to boot the phone up in Factory Mode, while in factory mode use the volume + and – to navigate the menu, the face button to select, and the mute button to go back. To exit factory mode hold down the mute button and the volume +.

Pros: – Super lightweight. (Weighs less than my iTouch) – Great battery life!! (Each battery easily lasts a day+) – Compatible with almost all the iPhone 4/4s accessories (with some slight modification for the cases to fit) – Duel Sim compatible – Memory expandable up to 32g via micro SD – Runs very smooth on ICS – Responsive touch screen (If you have a problem with it just re-callibrate it in factory mode. simple fix) – VERY affordable – Speakers are pretty good, comparable with the iPhone 4’s (tho not nearly as loud as my Sony Ericsson) – Call quality is clear (occasionally got some slight background noise but that may have been just my signal weakening)

Cons: – Unfortunately lightweight = less durable than it’s iPhone counterpart. Really recommend getting a silicon case or similar to protect it from falls. – Screen resolution could be a bit better. Don’t get me wrong it still looks good, but just about every phone out now has a higher resolution screen than this phone. – Rear facing camera is only 3.2 megapixels, front facing is a mere 0.3 (It’s alright as a point and shoot for facebook or instagram pics, but just don’t expect too much out of it)

Overall this is a great phone to have. I highly recommend getting it if you’re in the market for a new smartphone but don’t wanna break the bank doing so.

ok I don’t know what everyone is talking about, but I absolutely LOVE this phone. Its simple if you actually understand technology. And the camera IS NOT as bad as they make it seem. I would highly recommend this phone

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